


what happiness is

by tarquin



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-20
Updated: 2013-05-20
Packaged: 2017-12-12 09:41:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/810132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tarquin/pseuds/tarquin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A heat wave hits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	what happiness is

The air is charged from the minute Gavin steps into the apartment, and not in the good way that makes his stomach quiver and his toes curl. 

No, more in the sense that as he closes the door behind him he can’t help but notice the thickness in the air, the way his clothes feel damp on his skin, and the heat that presses down on him even though the sun has long since dipped under the horizon. Gavin had spent a good two extra hours at the office tonight, absorbing the subarctic temperatures the building was kept at, as well as putting off so much as the idea of returning to his apartment while the AC was busted.

But he’d given in and returned home eventually, and he can see now that things are just as awful as he’d assumed they’d be. 

While Gavin closes the door Michael moans from inside. He’s splayed out on the couch in a thin t-shirt and jean shorts. His head is lolled back over an arm rest while his legs lay askew on the other end. He looks up at Gavin through his glasses, miserable. 

“So I take it the air isn’t fixed?” Gavin asks, taking a few steps in. Michael’s response is a bitter grunt, something that translates to “No shit, Sherlock,” in Michael speak. When Gavin leans down to kiss his boyfriend on the forehead he’s met with palms against his shirt and shoulders, pushing him away.

“Ugh, not right now,” Michael moans. “It’s too hot for that.”

Gavin presses on all the same, placing a taunting kiss on Michael’s temple before turning away, dropping his keys on the counter and kicking off his shoes. Growing up in the UK Gavin hadn’t thought there could be anything worse than the cold weather. He’d learned how wrong he was during his first Texas heat wave.  
This is now his nth, and still he can’t think of anything he hates worse.

“When did maintenance say they’d get in?” Gavin asks, opening up the fridge and reaching blindly for the first cold drink he can reach. He secures one beer, than another, and heads back to the couch where Michael is sulking.

“Sometime this week. And until then we’re boned.”

“Well. It could be worse.” Gavin reasons, dropping a cold can on Michael’s chest as he passes. “… I’m not sure how, but it could be.”

This time the only response he gets is an irritated sigh.

In the hopes of lightening the mood Gavin tries to be cutesy, lifting Michael’s legs so he can sit down on the couch, then laying them back across his lap. But even the struggle from that causes too much shifting and heat, and with another “ugh,” Michael is sitting up, cracking open his beer and then heading towards the bathroom.

“I’m taking a cold shower.” He says in a short tone over his shoulder. “You’re free to join me.”

That’s more like it, Gavin thinks. A giggle winds its way out of his chest and he stands, following quickly after.

 

But even after a shower, after drinking themselves into mild comfort and unearthing an oscillating fan from the depths of the broom closet, there’s still nothing quite like the hell of their bedroom. When the pair lies down on their bed, a standard sized queen, it becomes almost immediately apparent that they’re in for a long night. The air is thick and humid, the sheets are too hot and stick to their skin, and there can’t be enough space between the two of them as the body heat is _insufferable_.

“Michael,” Gavin says as he watches the clock turn from 12:59 to 1 am, “Michael, I think this is how I’m going to die.”

Having long since lost any patience he’s had with the situation, Michael doesn’t even pretend to put up with the other boy’s words. 

“Shut _up_ , Gavin.” He responds, almost automatically.

Normally Gavin would put up a fight, just to see how riled up he could get his boyfriend and all, but the heat has even drained the fun out of that. Not to mention when Michael speaks it isn’t the inviting pseudo-anger that he usually talks with, it’s the real thing, something Gavin pointedly avoids. 

Gavin concedes with a hmph.

Sweaty and defeated they curl up on their respective sides of the bed, and in the span of the next few hours the closest they get to each other is one leg touching another. Even then that quickly gets kicked away as sweat pools between the shared skin. 

Eventually through some miracle their eyelids manage to grow heavy, but neither boy makes it long before the other jostles and wakes the other up. It’s terrible, hot and cloying and irritating, and by the time the two of them manage to fall into a mutual fitful sleep, the clock is pushing 3:30 am.

 

Gavin awakens to an almost alien feeling on his skin. _Cold_.

His mind is fuzzy in half-sleep, eyes lidded as he looks and finds the sky is stained with light shades of blue that hint at the coming dawn. His hands twitch numbly, there’s goosebumps on his arms and his bare chest is chilled, and any evidence of the blankets he usually uses are nothing but piles at the foot of the bed. There are still little pockets of his body that are warm, the skin under his knees and on his stomach where he’d been curled up, but shifting in the bed exposes these pockets to the air and in its half present state, Gavin’s mind knows to find it strange when he shivers.

Still, it’s early and Gavin is three percent awake at best. His only thoughts are those of falling back asleep but he can’t do that while he’s cold. And while yes, he could roll out of bed and find the blankets that had been kicked to the floor; his mind doesn’t get that far. Not at least while Michael is still on the other side of the bed, snoring lightly.

And at first he hesitates because he’s aware of the distance Michael had kept the night before. Not out of anger or _that_ kind of discomfort, just a general distaste for being touched while the sun cooked its earth. And while Gavin had respected that, had swallowed that ever present urge to grab Michael tight and not let go, now things are different. His mind is still numb and slow in the half-light but he knows there’s only one thing he wants, and that is Michael.

So he takes his chance, reaching for the source of heat that is his boy. 

When Gavin secures Michael and pulls him close he feels that the other boy is just as cold as he is. Because of this he relishes in the burst of warmth he gets under and on top of his skin when he presses his chest flush to Michael’s back. He decides immediately that he loves the softness of Michael; the way his body feels like it was crafted for Gavin to wrap around.

Nodding off lightly he nuzzles his head into the nape of Michael’s neck and waits for the boy to overheat and push him away.

But that doesn’t happen.

Instead Michael seems to welcome the warmth, shouldering into Gavin’s body and leaning into the touch. When Gavin flops an arm over Michael’s shoulder he feels the boy’s chest relax, and a second later Michael lets out a contented sigh, as though he’d needed the warmth as well. 

Gavin lays his head across the place where Michael’s neck meets his spine and dully he hears his heartbeat, a steady rhythm that does more to put Gavin to sleep than hours of exhaustion ever could. 

After that is isn’t long before any and all thought is gone from his mind, replaced only by the comfort of being close, and the feel of Michael’s fingers moving to entwine with his own.

**Author's Note:**

> _“And then one student said that happiness is what happens when you go to bed on the hottest night of the summer, a night so hot you can't even wear a tee-shirt and you sleep on top of the sheets instead of under them, although try to sleep is probably more accurate. And then at some point late, late, late at night, say just a bit before dawn, the heat finally breaks and the night turns into cool and when you briefly wake up, you notice that you're almost chilly, and in your groggy, half-consciousness, you reach over and pull the sheet around you and just that flimsy sheet makes it warm enough and you drift back off into a deep sleep. And it's that reaching, that gesture, that reflex we have to pull what's warm - whether it's something or someone - toward us, that feeling we get when we do that, that feeling of being sad in the world and ready for sleep, that's happiness.”_
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> _― Paul Schmidtberger, Design Flaws of the Human Condition_


End file.
